Executive summary
May 2026 was the first month under the OpCo-proposed eligibility changes (50% monthly participation when fewer than five votes; 10% reward trim instead of full disqualification when a rationale is missing on time). It was also the first month RAD included a Security Council (SC) member election, with a $25,000 incentive pool and no per-delegate cap.
Across four governance actions, 36 enrolled delegates deployed voting power on 109 delegate–proposal instances (75.69% program participation). 30 delegates will receive $52,000.00 in total RAD rewards (full budget utilization on all four proposal sheets). 53 of 109 voted instances (48.62%) had an on-time public rationale; delegates who voted without a timely rationale remained eligible for rewards where monthly participation and minimum VP rules were met, with a 10% trim applied to that proposal’s payout.
Compared with corrected April 2026 (four off-chain Snapshot votes, 75% participation threshold, rationale effectively required for incentivized VP): May had a higher aggregate participation rate (75.69% vs 64.71%), more delegates paid (30 vs 14), and 2.6× total USD distributed ($52,000 vs $20,000), driven by larger per-proposal budgets (especially constitutional frozen ETH and SC) and the lower participation bar.
What changed vs April (OpCo rules, May onward)
| Rule | April 2026 | May 2026 (this report) |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly participation | ≥ 75% of proposals in the month | ≥ 50% (< 5 proposals in month) |
| Missing rationale within 5 days | Effectively excluded incentivized VP on that vote | −10% on that proposal’s reward (no full VP zeroing) |
| Proposal mix | 4× Snapshot (off-chain) | 1× Snapshot temp check + 2× Tally on-chain + 1× SC member election |
| Total RAD envelope | $24,000 ($20,000 spent in corrected April) | $52,000 ($52,000 spent) |
Details and rationale for the policy shift are in the March 2026 RAD update and the formal eligibility update.
May Participants
A total of 36 participants enrolled.
New: LamprosDAO and SEEDGov
You can see the full list here.
Voting breakdown
Four proposals counted toward May RAD participation and rewards:
1. Snapshot — temperature check (non-binding)
Approve Release of Frozen ETH
- Budget / cap: $5,000 · $300 / delegate
- Link: Snapshot proposal
- RAD voters: 26 / 36 (72.2% of enrolled)
- On-time rationales (among voters): 14 (53.8%)
2. Tally — on-chain, non-constitutional
Transfer 6,000 ETH and Idle Stablecoins from the Treasury to the Treasury Management Portfolio
- Budget / cap: $7,000 · $500 / delegate
- Link: Tally proposal
- RAD voters: 25 / 36 (69.4%)
- On-time rationales: 13 (52.0%)
3. Tally — on-chain, constitutional
[Constitutional] AIP: Amended Release of Frozen ETH Pursuant to Court Order
- Budget / cap: $15,000 · $700 / delegate
- Link: Tally proposal
- RAD voters: 27 / 36 (75.0%)
- On-time rationales: 15 (55.6%)
4. Tally — Security Council Election (member round)
SC Election 5 — Member Election (Round 2)
- Budget: $25,000 · no per-delegate cap
- Minimum VP per row: 200,000 ARB (unchanged)
- Forum / Tally context: March 2026 Security Council member election (member phase; nominee round excluded from RAD scope)
- RAD voters: 31 / 36 (86.1%) — highest turnout of the month
- On-time rationales: 11 (35.5%) among voters
Delegates could split voting power across 11 candidates in the member round; rewards use the aggregated eligible VP per delegate (see SC sheet in the workbook). Many rationales appeared in monthly delegate communication bundles (e.g. April or May “voting” posts under Tally votings), including cases where the forum post predated the vote window but was updated during the election period.
Total RAD budget envelope (May): $52,000 ($5k + $7k + $15k + $25k). All four sheets show full budget spend in the curated workbook.
As a reminder, the budget for this quarter was set at the time of the vote that approved this program:
[quote=“Arbitrum, post:1, topic:30249”]
Incentive Budget per Quarter
| Proposal type | Incentive Budget | Payout Cap | Minimum voting power |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-chain constitutional quorum | 15,000 USD | 700 USD | 200k ARB |
| On-chain non-constitutional quorum | 7,000 USD | 500 USD | 200k ARB |
| Off-chain decision-making (non-constitutional) | 7,000 USD | 500 USD | 200k ARB |
| Off-chain election | 7,000 USD | 500 USD | 200k ARB |
| Off-chain temperature check (non-binding) | 5,000 USD | 300 USD | 200k ARB |
Table 1: Incentive Budget 1st quarter [/quote]
May Results
Total distributed: $52,000.00
Delegates paid: 30
Source: Total Reward Summary sheet
| Delegate | Proposals Voted | Total Rewards ($) |
|---|---|---|
| Blockworks Research | 4 | $3,949.85 |
| Yoav | 3 | $3,535.77 |
| L2BEAT | 4 | $3,452.89 |
| Griff | 4 | $3,367.90 |
| MUX | 4 | $3,155.27 |
| SEEDGov | 4 | $2,993.98 |
| GMX | 4 | $2,955.27 |
| Olimpio | 4 | $2,831.45 |
| Camelot | 4 | $2,437.51 |
| Gauntlet | 3 | $2,518.39 |
| DZack23 | 4 | $2,347.37 |
| Coinflip | 4 | $2,195.26 |
| Areta | 4 | $1,820.17 |
| MaxLomu | 3 | $1,799.87 |
| Arana Digital | 4 | $1,782.38 |
| Mihal | 4 | $1,641.81 |
| GFXLabs | 3 | $1,601.06 |
| Jojo | 4 | $1,513.22 |
| Uniswap Delegation | 4 | $1,136.61 |
| Cornell Blockchain | 3 | $1,095.04 |
| TodayInDeFi | 4 | $1,013.80 |
| Aave | 2 | $799.96 |
| Reverie | 2 | $525.49 |
| Zeptimus | 4 | $303.65 |
| Layer3 | 2 | $305.13 |
| cp0x | 4 | $215.34 |
| Axia Network | 3 | $206.22 |
| Sov | 3 | $171.65 |
| Mikael Bondum | 2 | $164.94 |
| LamprosDAO | 4 | $162.74 |
| TOTAL | $52,000.00 |
Rewards paid out on June 3, 2026. (tx link)
Metrics
Participation
| Metric | May 2026 | April 2026 (corrected) |
|---|---|---|
| Enrolled delegates | 36 | 34 |
| Proposals in scope | 4 | 4 |
| Program participation (aggregate) | 75.69% (109 / 144) | 64.71% (88 / 136) |
| Delegates with 100% (4/4) | 19 | 19 |
| Delegates with 75% (3/4) | 7 | 0 |
| Delegates with 50% (2/4) | 4 | 6 |
| Delegates with 0% | 2 | 9 |
| Met monthly threshold (≥ 50% May / ≥ 75% Apr) | 30 | 25 |
Rationale requirement
Among instances where an enrolled delegate cast a vote:
| May 2026 | April 2026 (corrected) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vote instances | 109 | 88 |
| On-time rationale | 53 (48.62%) | 60 (68.18%) |
| Voted without on-time rationale | 56 | 28 |
May’s lower headline rationale rate is partly mechanical: the 10% trim allows rewards to flow when delegates vote but omit timely rationales (12+ delegates per sheet still show No rationale with non-zero eligible VP in the workbook). SC had the lowest rationale rate (35.5%), consistent with harder discovery of member-round posts in communication-thread bundles.
Incentivized VP (per proposal sheet) = VP that counts after monthly participation threshold, ≥ 200k ARB on the row. Delegates with No rationale but sufficient participation can still earn rewards at 90% of the cap-weighted share for that proposal (trim factor in column Accumulative Rewards).
Voting power & incentivized VP
From RAD Program - May 2026 Results table TOTAL row (VP = column B; Eligible VP = column E; Incentivized VP % = row below the table):
| Proposal | Total VP deployed | Incentivized VP | % Incentivized |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frozen ETH Snapshot | 153,867,270 ARB | 150,868,733 ARB | 98.05% |
| Treasury 6k ETH Onchain | 153,713,591 ARB | 153,713,591 ARB | 100.00% |
| Frozen ETH Constitutional | 156,125,565 ARB | 156,125,565 ARB | 100.00% |
| SC Member Election May 2026 | 137,003,713 ARB | 132,811,508 ARB | 96.94% |
Incentivized % is higher than in corrected April (~56–58%) because May keeps vote VP in Eligible VP even without an on-time rationale; the −10% trim applies in the payout columns, not by zeroing Eligible VP.
Economics
| Proposal | Incentivized VP | Total spent | ARB / USD (footer) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frozen ETH Snapshot | 150,868,733 ARB | $5,000.00 | 28,215.71 |
| Treasury 6k ETH Onchain | 153,713,591 ARB | $7,000.00 | 20,537.08 |
| Frozen ETH Constitutional | 156,125,565 ARB | $15,000.00 | 9,822.04 |
| SC Member Election | 132,811,508 ARB | $25,000.00 | 4,965.46 |
- Note that this ratio does not match the one used for reward calculations in the shared sheets. This is expected due to the reward cap. The ratio used in the sheets is purely a mathematical construct intended to redistribute the remaining budget among delegates who do not reach the cap, ensuring that 100% of the originally allocated budget is distributed.
Conclusions & observations
May is best read as a stress test of the OpCo eligibility update: heavier governance (frozen ETH arc + SC), new rules (50% participation, 10% rationale trim), and a much larger budget ($52k vs $20k corrected April). A few patterns stand out.
1. The rule change did what it was meant to do: broader eligibility, higher headline participation
Aggregate program participation rose to 75.69% (from 64.71% in corrected April), even with the same number of proposals. 30 delegates cleared the monthly bar, vs only 14 who received rewards in April. The four delegates at exactly 50% (2/4 votes) are the clearest proof: they would have failed April’s threshold but earned $165–$800 in May. The inactive tail also shrank (2 at 0% participation vs 9 in April). OpCo’s goal of reducing “all-or-nothing” disqualification is visible in the data.
2. Participation and public rationale are diverging
Delegates voted more often than they explained their votes on time: 48.62% of vote instances had an on-time rationale, vs 68.18% in corrected April. That drop is not mainly because fewer people voted; it’s because May still pays when the rationale is missing (trim), whereas April’s workbook largely required a rationale for the eligible VP. The starkest split is the Security Council: 86.1% of enrolled delegates voted in the member election (highest turnout), but only 35.5% of those voters had a detectable on-time rationale—the lowest of the four proposals. SC is socially “mandatory” to vote, but technically harder to document in monthly communication bundles. That mismatch is worth watching in future SC rounds.
3. Rewards are less flat, more VP-weighted
April corrected payouts clustered at $1,600 or $800 (similar Snapshot caps and budgets). May spreads from ~$163 (LamprosDAO, 4/4 votes) to ~$3,950 (Blockworks, 4/4)—a 24× spread among paid delegates. Drivers: (a) $25k uncapped SC pool, (b) $700 constitutional cap, (c) more eligible VP staying in the denominator under the new rules. Large, fully participating delegates capture a disproportionate share of SC and constitutional lines; small delegates can participate fully yet remain low-dollar if VP is modest. This is closer to “pay proportional to weight” than April’s cap-saturated equality.
4. Rationale trim is a soft nudge, not a hard discipline mechanism
Roughly half of the vote instances lacked an on-time rationale, yet ~97–100% of deployed VP still count as Eligible VP on proposal sheets (participation + min VP only). The 10% trim reduces individual payouts but does not remove VP from the pool, so missing rationales still shape everyone’s marginal reward